The Underdogs, a Story of the Mexican Revolution eBook

They advanced toward the main road; in the distance
they spied a figure of an Indian sitting on the embank-ment.
They drew up to him. He proved to be an un-friendly
looking old man, clad in rags; he was laboriously
attempting to mend his leather sandals with the help
of a dull knife. A burro loaded with fresh green
grass stood by. Demetrio accosted him.

“What are you doing, Grandpa?”

“Gathering alfalfa for my cow.”

“How many Federals are there around here?”

“Just a few: not more than a dozen, I reckon.”

The old man grew communicative. He told them
of many important rumors: Obregon was besieging
Guada-lajara, Torres was in complete control of the
Potosi re-gion, Natera ruled over Fresnillo.

“All right,” said Demetrio, “you
can go where you’re headed for, see, but you
be damn careful not to tell any-one you saw us, because
if you do, I’ll pump you full of lead.
And I could track you down, even if you tried to hide
in the pit of hell, see?”

“What do you say, boys?” Demetrio asked
them as soon as the old man had disappeared.

“To hell with the mochos! We’ll kill
every blasted one of them!” they cried in unison.

Then they set to counting their cartridges and the
hand grenades the Owl had made out of fragments of
iron tubing and metal bed handles.

“Not much to brag about, but we’ll soon
trade them for rifles,” Anastasio observed.

Anxiously they pressed forward, spurring the thin
flanks of their nags to a gallop. Demetrio’s
brisk, imperious tones of order brought them abruptly
to a halt.

They dismounted by the side of a hill, protected by
thick huizache trees. Without unsaddling their
horses, each began to search for stones to serve as
pillows.

XVI

At midnight Demetrio Macias ordered the march to
be resumed. The town was five or six miles away;
the best plan was to take the soldiers by surprise,
before reveille.

The sky was cloudy, with here and there a star shining.
From time to time a flash of lightning crossed the
sky with a red dart, illumining the far horizon.

Luis Cervantes asked Demetrio whether the success
of the attack might not be better served by procuring
a guide or leastways by ascertaining the topographic
conditions of the town and the precise location of
the soldiers’ quar-ters.

“No,” Demetrio answered, accompanying
his smile with a disdainful gesture, “we’ll
simply fall on them when they least expect it; that’s
all there is to it, see? We’ve done it
before all right, lots of times! Haven’t
you ever seen the squirrels stick their heads out
of their holes when you poured in water? Well,
that’s how these lousy soldiers are going to
feel. Do you see? They’ll be frightened
out of their wits the moment they hear our first shot.
Then they’ll slink out and stand as targets
for us.”